20 Years of Friendship

On Saturday night, the Friends of the Weinberg Memorial Library presented the 13th Royden B. Davis Distinguished Author Award to TransAtlantic author and National Book Award winner Colum McCann. It was an extraordinary evening, with record-breaking attendance (250!), a deeply moving address by McCann, and a steady stream of Irish humor from our master of ceremonies, Msgr. Joseph Quinn.

But McCann’s visit was not the only cause for celebration: this year’s event also marked the 20th anniversary of the Friends of the Library. In his remarks, Dean Charles Kratz thanked the many Friends who have supported us throughout the years, recognizing especially the attendees of the very first Friends meeting in June 1994 (pictured above in selections from our digital collections). This year’s award honorarium was donated in memory of Judith L. Weinberger, who had served on the Friends Board, and a special appetizer of grilled cheese and tomato soup was served in her honor.

In addition to the Distinguished Author Award, the Friends support the Weinberg Memorial Library throughout each academic year by organizing fundraisers (like our Book and Plant Sale and the annual Leaves of Class raffle), contributing resources to the Library collections, and sponsoring programs of interest to the community.

During the past twenty years, the Friends have made an enormous impact on the Weinberg Memorial Library and the students and scholars we serve. We are truly honored by your support, and we cannot thank you enough.

 

Remembering Apollo 11, Honoring Glynn S. Lunney H’71

Today is the 45th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, so it seems like a good day to honor NASA flight director Glynn S. Lunney H’71. A native of Old Forge, Lunney graduated from Scranton Prep and studied at the University of Scranton before receiving his B.S. in aerospace engineering from the University of Detroit.

Check out the full citation for his 1971 honorary doctor of laws degree in our digital collections! If you’re on campus, you can also browse through some newspaper clippings about his appearance and address at undergraduate commencement that year.

Alumni Authors Exhibit

Alumni Authors Exhibit

Throughout the month of June, The University of Scranton Alumni Authors Exhibit is on display in the Library’s 5th floor Heritage Room. The exhibit showcases books by more than a hundred alumni authors and includes many signed copies.

The range of subjects varies greatly, encompassing alumni who became authors in their academic fields, nonfiction writers, novelists, children’s literature writers, and historians. The earliest former student featured is Clarence Walton, ’37, 10th president of The Catholic University of America and the first layman to hold the position. The youngest graduate featured in the exhibit is Sarah M. Piccini, ’07, G’10, whose local history book, Framing Faith, provides a pictorial history of former churches in the Diocese of Scranton.

Also included in the exhibit is Jason Miller, ’61, H’73, who received the 1973 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for his play That Championship Season.  Two of our very own Librarians, Bonnie Strohl, G’90, and Kristen Yarmey, G’12, are also alumnae and have books on display in the exhibit.

We also have numerous books by alumna and children’s literature writer, Susan Campbell Bartoletti, G’82, who has written a Newberry Honor Book and a Robert F. Sibert Informational Book Medal winner.  She is also the recipient of 2013 Friends of the Weinberg Library Royden B. Davis, S.J., Distinguished Author Award.

We encourage you to explore this wonderful exhibit and celebrate our alumni and their important contributions in the publishing world. The exhibit is on display during normal library hours.  For more information, please contact Michael Knies, Special Collections Librarian, (570) 941-6341.

Hey! You! Get into our (Dura)Cloud!

DuraCloud logo

The Weinberg Memorial Library’s got a brand new cloud – and unlike Mick Jagger’s, on ours, not even two terabytes are a crowd.

Thanks to our new partnership with DuraCloud, the master files from our digital collections are now being preserved in a more robust repository, where we can monitor the health of our bitstreams, discover and repair any corruption or damage, and automatically back everything up offsite in Amazon S3 and Amazon Glacier cloud storage.

This is a pretty important step up for us. Since our beginnings in 2008, our digital collections have expanded from 0 to 1.75 terabytes (that’s about 1,792 gigabytes!), with no signs of stopping anytime soon. At that scale, it was getting difficult for us to manage our own local and remote backups, and we were quickly running out of local storage space. The move to DuraCloud not only smooths out our workflow, it also gives us plenty of room to grow for the future.

As an added bonus, thanks to interoperability between DuraCloud and our Archive-It web archiving service, all of the web content that we capture for preservation from University-related sites will be automatically backed up in DuraCloud, too.

All of these changes are on the back end, so users won’t notice any difference – you can still search and browse our digital collections at www.scranton.edu/library/digitalcollections.

Faculty Scholarship Exhibit

Faculty Scholarship ExhibitDuring the month of May, the Weinberg Memorial Library is hosting its annual Faculty Scholarship Exhibit in the Library’s 5th floor Heritage Room. The exhibit features books and articles produced by University of Scranton faculty members since 2011. The exhibit, organized by academic department, provides an overview of the diversity and quality of scholarly accomplishments by the University’s faculty. Please take a few minutes to visit the exhibit.  For further information please contact Michael Knies, Special Collections Librarian, 570-941-6341.

Spotlight on Student Workers: Gabrielle Gorton

Gabby Gorton

It’s no surprise that Gabrielle Gorton is this week’s featured student worker.  Gabby has only worked in the Special Collections Department for about a year, but the Library is grateful for all of her hard work on a variety of projects.

Gabby has assisted with processing negatives from the Terry and Paula Connors Photograph Collection and has also accessioned files from the Office of the Provost into the Archives.  Last spring Gabby volunteered at the Friends of the Library Annual Book Sale. Her major project at the moment is helping Special Collections Librarian Michael Knies organize his research that he gathered from the British National Library while on sabbatical in January.

Gabby is an Early Childhood Education major, and this semester she is completing a field placement in a first grade classroom. She is involved in various education clubs on campus and plans to graduate in the fall after finishing her student teaching placement.  Her outgoing and ambitious nature, along with her passion for education, will certainly prove valuable in a successful teaching career.

As an outdoor enthusiast Gabby loves horseback riding and camping, but currently most of her free time is spent excitedly planning her upcoming October wedding.

Gabby enjoys how friendly and helpful the Library staff is.  Her recommendation for other students is to take the time to become familiar with the Library and the many resources that it offers.

Thank you, Gabby, for all of your support to the Library!

Friends of the Library 20th Anniversary Exhibit

Friends of the Library 20th AnniversaryCongratulations to the Friends of the Weinberg Memorial Library, who mark their twentieth anniversary in 2014!  For two decades the Friends group has been committed to helping the Library excel in meeting the dynamic scholarly, cultural, and social endeavors of the University and the community at large.

In celebration of the anniversary, a small exhibit is on display in the 5th floor Heritage Room showcasing the years of support from the Friends group, including their various activities, events, and Endowment.  The exhibit will be on display until Thursday, April 17th.

Visit our Friends of the Weinberg Memorial Library webpage to learn more about the Friends group and how you can become a member.

For more information about the exhibit, please contact Special Collections Librarian Michael Knies Michael.Knies@Scranton.edu 570-941-6341.

Good Luck, Coach Strong!

Good luck to the Lady Royals in their game this afternoon against Juniata! If they win, it will be the team’s 11th win for the season — and the 800th win of Coach Mike Strong’s career, which would make him the first coach in NCAA Division III women’s basketball history to reach that milestone.

Strong became head coach for the Lady Royals in 1979. Here’s a photo of Coach Strong with his team from the 1980 Windhover yearbook:

Mike Strong with the 1980 Lady Royals

 

This Week in University History: The Attack on Pearl Harbor and the Effect it had on the University of Scranton.

A series of events leading to the Jesuits taking on both the administration and ownership of the University of Scranton occurred 72 years ago this week.  At the time, the Christian Brothers were running the U, but with the almost daily drop in enrollment after December 7, 1941, at higher education institutions throughout the country due to young men joining the military, plus debt problems, the Brothers felt they needed to devote their time, talents and energies to La Salle College, which the order owned.  According to Homer, Holy Cross Fathers politely declined the offer of running the U; Bishop Hafey then turned to the Society of Jesus which within a few months, agreed to the challenge.  The Provincial, the Very Rev. James P. Sweeney, S.J. noted in his acceptance letter, “…St. Ignatius was never one to run away from a difficult proposition and we are supposed to imitate his example.”  “The Brothers had begun virtually from scratch with a mere eighteen students; forty-five years later they left a University with a growing body of loyal alumni, a strong reservoir of community support, and, not least of all, a singularly dedicated lay faculty already developing a solid reputation for teaching excellence.” Thank you Christian Brothers and Thank you to the Society of Jesus for all your good work in leading the University of Scranton.  Let us carry on in our studies to make U proud. 

Pioneer Jesuit Faculty
Pioneer Jesuit Faculty

Homer, Frank X.J.  “The End of an Era: 1940-1942.”  The Scranton Journal.  Spring 1988: 6-9.  Print.